Page 58 of Fable for the End of the World

“Animals?” Inesa supplies.

Her tone is so flat as to be unreadable. Now I can’t summon up any words at all. I just nod, even though she can’t see, and let the air fill with that one unspoken syllable, the one that is running through both of our minds, as ceaseless as a beating heart.

Yes.

The silence is thick, like spoiled water.

“How unfortunate, then,” Inesa says at last, “that you have to share a cabin with one of us. That you had totouchone of us.” Her voice is veined with ice.

“No,” I say, and I’m surprised at the readiness of the word as it leaps from my tongue. “I don’t believe that. Not anymore.”

Despite how much more difficult it makes everything, some metamorphosis has happened inside me, invisible at a mere glance.I can hardly even explain it to myself. All I know is that I’ve seen the way the light reflects in her hazel eyes and illuminates the freckles on her cheeks, and I’ve felt the warmth of her touch, the way her flesh gives way under my hands.

“No,” I repeat, with more certainty this time, as Inesa just stares into the darkness. “I’m convinced that you’re human now.”

Twenty-Three

Inesa

Morning comes. Softly, slowly, like the sun has surprised itself byrising. Somehow, I have survived another night of my Gauntlet.

Somehow, too, it seems like Melinoë has managed to stay awake all night. She’s exactly where I left her when I fell asleep, sitting on the floor, knees pulled up to her chest. Her head is bowed over, nestled in the crook of her knees. But the moment I shift in the bed, her head snaps up in response.

“Good morning,” I say. “You should rest now.”

With the effects of the withdrawal now gone, she looks a little less pale, but not by much. There are also bright violet circles beneath her eyes, and her lips are closer to blue than pink. She squares her shoulders and says, “I’m fine.”

I slide out of the bed and pull on my boots. “Just sleep. You’re no use if you’re too exhausted to hold a gun.”

“I’m not too exhausted.”

I tilt my head. “You’re not a very good liar, you know.”

Maybe that’s why she doesn’t talk much. When she’s notspeaking, she’s excellent at keeping her expression neutral, cold. But speaking, she gives herself away.

Like she did last night. In the quiet darkness, she was more honest with me than I had any right to expect. Without being able to see her, I could only hear the faint tremor in her voice; it made her seem so vulnerable. Not like the mindless, unfeeling killer I once imagined her to be.

I’m convinced that you’re human now.

In the revealing light of day, maybe she’s changed her mind. Caked in days of dirt and sweat and blood, I probably look plenty like an animal. And now that I can see her clearly, too, with that impossibly pale and perfect skin, stretched taut over titanium-reinforced bones, my brain should switch back into survival mode, and I should think of her as more machine than girl.

I blink and blink, but I can’t manage to shift my vision. After last night’s conversation, she seems vulnerable in a way I never imagined an Angel could. And everything is even more tangled and dangerous than it should be, because now I’m convinced that she’s human, too.

Melinoë’s jaw sets. There’s a spark of defiance in her eyes that somehow seems to even animate the prosthetic. My heart thumps unevenly.

“Fine.” I sigh. “I’m going to get us some water.”

Slowly, Melinoë starts to push herself up from the floor. On instinct, I hold out a hand. Melinoë hesitates for a moment, then slips her fingers through mine and lets me pull her to her feet.

My bandages stayed in place overnight, and all the blood hasdried and scabbed, but my hands are still throbbing a little. The pressure of her palm is slightly painful, and I bite my lip. She notices that, of course, and drops my hand like it’s a burning coal.

“It’s okay,” I say. “Thank you—again. You didn’t have to.”

She just nods. Still not much for words, my Angel.

I wonder when I started thinking of her asmine.

Maybe it was even before we spoke last night in the dark. Maybe it started when she wrapped the gauze gently around my wounds. When she lifted my hand to her mouth. I can still feel it, if I focus on the memory—her lips grazing my skin. I have to clench my fists to stop thinking about it, stop feeling it, drag myself out of the past.

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